The Courtship of Nika Boronina
by breadandchoc
Summary: Sequel to “Ten steps for capturing a Hitman”. Pure movieverse, Nika/47. Despite the title, much less fluff this time.
1. The Courtship of Nika Boronina

**The Courtship of Nika Boronina (Or, A Comedy of Errors)**

I write not for blood, guts or glory, but for the romance and to be read.

So, O tiny fandom, let me know you few Nika/47 readers aren't completely dead yet by reviewing. Mature feedback especially appreciated.

Also, if the "for the romance" bit didn't warn you - this is pure movieverse. As in I have never played the games, and I have extrapolated a great deal about the background of 47's industry from what little the movie gave us.

This will be a three chapter fic. If it seems a little jerky, it's because I initially planned the story to be entirely from Nika's POV and done as a quick semi-fluffy one-shot. Obviously, I failed to achieve everything in that last sentence.

Thanks for all feedback.

* * *

///

Sometimes, Nika does something so naive and thoughtless and just fucking _stupid_ that he can't help but think, just for a moment: _this is never going to work. She isn't worth it._

Just for a moment.

///

The real problem here isn't Nika. The problem here is him.

47 knows this. He knows it and the Organisation knows it and the other agencies know it, and even the better freelancers with the right connections know it. And they know he knows it, and he knows they know he knows, and so on and on, in this infinite loop that always end up with the same point, flat as a fatal heartline:

He is the problem.

He let a witness live.

This is not so bad in itself. (Actually, no: it is jarringly unprofessional and he is (was) _never _anything less perfectly professionally – this is very bad. But it gets worse.) That mistake is still salvageable. When it is found out, the Organisation even sends a man after Nika to clean up for him, as a form of apology and gift for their betrayal in St. Petersburg. If he had accepted it then, then all this would be over by now. The single mistake in his otherwise flawless career would remain secret; his life would remain starkly violent and wonderfully uncomplicated; and every other hitman alive today wouldn't be trying to take him down.

But.

That's not what happens. Despite how irrational he knew it was, that is not the future 47 chose to live in.

///

This is what happens:

He kills the agent sent.

He gives his mistake a place to hide.

He methodically retires all other agents or contractors sent in the aftermath.

He continues to carry out his assignments as competently and efficiently as if the Belicoff debacle never happened.

And yet he never retaliates against those who order the hits. 47 understands the line the separates personal attacks from administrative corrections, and he is professional enough to accept the latter as a right of his former Organisation. Only amateurs take these things personally – only amateurs are too blinded by revenge or lust or whatever weakness to refuse to realize that they've made a mistake and actually try to fight the people who are trying to correct it. And 47 wants to be very, very clear that despite his one (unbelievable) mistake, he is still a professional. He has not gone rogue or unstable or (too) irrational, he merely has a... side-project that does _not_ detract or distract him from his work. He is still the best killer alive, and to interfere with him would be deeply unwise.

If actions speak louder than words, then 47 is practically deafening on this last point.

Naturally, the whole thing confuses the Organisation. They keep sending more men, and he keeps tracking and sniping them down. As a courtesy, or perhaps because of the spectacular failure when they tried it the last time, they don't put any hits out on his head. 47 has an unspoken agreement with the Organisation, and it goes like this: they pretend not to notice when he occasionally hijacks their various resources, and he decides not to burn them to the ground for their betrayal in St. Petersburg. This would explain why Organisation prefers to keep all things related to their former agent as secret as possible. As a result, it takes nearly two months before word starts to get out. It takes nearly two months before the rumours start.

It starts at first as a joke. His particular industry is a dark and unique one, and not known for its sense of humour, but somehow, even with the characteristic of this business as a lone-wolf affair, the rumour spreads faster than even 47 anticipated. It has to do with a certain legendary hitman and his apparent blindspot for Russian whores – the details of the frankly unfunny joke doesn't matter.

What matters is that after a while, a few people get too interested and start dropping a few questions in unfortunate places. What matters is that soon the joke becomes a story, the story becomes a puzzle, the puzzle becomes an underground controversy, and then the few other nameless and very officially non-existent agencies in the industry finally starts paying attention. They send an order framed as a request to the Organisation, flat and direct: _seek confirmation – is this true?_

The Organisation confirms it.

It would take more effort than it is worth to find out the exact reactions of the other agencies, but 47 gathers enough to know that they are not pleased. They demand to know why the Organisation has done nothing about their former agent. They get pictures and a body count of the damage control attempts so far. They ask why the Organisation hasn't managed to at least track the witness down. They get more pictures and another list of body counts. They point out, acidly polite, that clearly the Organisation shouldn't have compromised such a talented agent and it is their responsibility to clean it up. This time, each agency gets pictures of men of _theirs_ that _they've_ betrayed in the past, and a sheet precisely tallying the resources the Organisation has lost in helping take them down.

It's all bluster and delay, really. In the end, 47 knows as well as them that this is a problem for them all. He even appreciates the theory behind it: random acts of mercy are bad for business and should be discouraged; Nika is a random act of mercy; therefore, she should be discouraged. Visibly. When you're in a business that demands unquestioning compliance and ruthless brutality from the killers you've trained, you can't afford to have one deviate from the standard and let him go untouched. He might become a symbol. Worse, he might become a _possibility_. The breathing proof of choice. 47 can almost hear the various agencies panicking at the very idea.

It takes a couple of weeks before the organisations decide on a solution, and by the time they contact him, 47 is ready. He has researched the few precedents before him – other hitmen who have had kept witnesses or even targets alive, or tried to retire, or went rogue, or any of a variety of mistakes. Aside from perhaps one, none of them survived past their first four months. And 47 is not even sure about that one lonely survivor: like him, he was from the Organisation, and the only evidence that he may have made it is that his file was wiped clean instead of made public an example like the rest – and that may just be because the Organisation prefers to pretend that mistakes by their agents don't exist. As far as 47 can tell, their offer is always the same. A rule of engagement that is simple and darkly ironic and suicidally in their favour.

47 is going to accept it.

"_Incoming message: do you accept?"_

"Yes."

The laptop hums softly as it receives and decodes the connection. 47 strips off his jacket and pulls off his tie while he waits. The shirt is ruined with faint but unmistakable blood spray: he bites back a sigh.

"_We have an offer,"_ the screen drones finally. "_Regarding the witness from the St. Petersburg."_

"I'm listening."

"_This situation is most irregular. However, we are sure all parties involved can come to a reasonable understanding."_

The cursor blinks. 47 says nothing.

"_There is an old common law rule called a year and a day. It states no one is criminally responsible for the killing of another if death occurs past a year and a day after cause of death. Are you familiar with this?"_

"Yes."

"_As even legal wrongs have time limits as to their consequences, so are we prepared to recognize the same. The witness is free to live if she lives past a year and day. In return, you will accept a universal hit on your head, and arrange for all our costs to be covered in the event of your deaths. Do you accept?"_

"Define the parameters."

He already knows them, but 47 is nothing but meticulous in his preparations.

"_Your position will be a purely defensive one." _The text is a rapid blur across the screen. "_You will not retaliate or go on the offensive. You will not sabotage or hold any member of the major organisations hostage. You will not engage in blackmail. You will not cause us to incur more costs than is necessary in the defence of your position. You will ensure the witness remains silent as to what she has seen. You will not involve or invoke the direct help of any third parties. If any of these terms are breached, the period of a year and day restarts."_

There is a pause. Then, as if even electronically modified voices can sound reluctant, it adds, "_And if you receive any assignment offers from any of the agencies, you will not be prejudiced against them."_

Well. It appears his reputation precedes him. Even as they try to wipe him off, they want to make sure they still have his expertise for the particularly difficult missions – while they can.

"Accepted. But if any of the offers are traps, the period ends immediately and the witness is free to walk – and I will be _very _displeased."

"_You have our assurance that we will not engage in such conduct."_

"In my experience," 47 says acerbically, "that means nothing."

The cursor blinks silently.

47 gives himself one last chance to change his mind. It would be the rational thing to do. It would be the professi—

"I accept the offer. The period started when I shot the first agent sent after the witness. That makes this the second month and third week of the rule."

"_That is not how—"_

"This," 47 repeats, "is now the second month and third week of the rule."

A brief pause. Then,

"_Accepted. We have an understanding."_

He ends the connection. And then 47 wonders for the thousandth time what the hell he is doing. Nika is going to be the death of him, and it may very well be literal.

As he stands under the punishing hot spray of the shower, 47 thinks that maybe it's time he paid her a visit. It would be the first time he's seen her since he left her at the train. He makes a note to pack extra tranquilizer darts.

///

(A note:

47 didn't actually mean to keep visiting. He just wanted to make sure she was aware that he was alive, so it would cut down on any delays of surprise if he had to relocate or retrieve her in the future. The reception had been explosive, to say the least. Apparently, Nika really did think he was dead. She was tiresomely vocal in her displeasure. But when he had been about to leave, she had followed him to the car and asked him when he was coming back. And she kept looking at him this way, defiant and uncertain and horribly vulnerable, and...

47 really wishes she would stop doing that. It just makes life difficult for him.

So, he didn't actually mean to keep visiting. This is important. Because it just goes to show that despite all appearances to the contrary, he definitely, _definitely _didn't mean to start taking her with him on his trips.)

///

The first time he does it, there_ is_ a legitimate reason. More or less.

The target has already survived two attempts by others, and has turned into one of those annoying recluses who never leave their home. Unfortunately, his home is also fortified with four sets of patrolling guards with Rottweiler's; has double-layered bulletproof reflective windows; a screening system of biometric security; two rooms of guards watching cameras. He also has an army of bodyguards who never leave his side.

Basically, your typical over-the-top target which would take 47 about a week or less to kill.

But he is also a target who lives in Greece.

Where Nika has never been.

Where she has once mentioned she would like to go.

And it is a relatively safe assignment; and there is a formal function that the target is hosting in his house which would allow the hit to be done in one night; and even if Nika was seen, it would only confuse and add to the false trails he has laid for her trackers; and...

For Christ's sake.

47 brings Nika along as _cover_, on the very legitimate basis that it would be near impossible to get into the function as a single man. For the first day there, he leaves Nika to her own devices while he makes the necessary arrangements. When he finally returns, the sky is glowing bruise-blue and he's in need of a new suit jacket. The blood stain is invisible to the eye, but 47 knows it's there and anything less than perfection annoys him.

When he walks in, Nika is in the middle of reapplying her make-up. The steam in the bathroom coil lovingly around her long legs. She is remarkably topless.

"The door is there for a reason, Nika," he says pointedly. He drops the packages on a chair, then follows suit. He stares at the banquet before him.

"But then how will you pretend not to look?" she calls back. 47 ignores that.

"What's all this?"

"Your dinner." She comes out with slightly more clothes on. "I didn't know what you wanted."

_Oh. That's... _

"Thank you," he says. _Unexpected_.

Nika shrugs. "You don't have to look so surprised." She sits in the chair opposite him, draws her legs up.

"I went to the beach today," she informs him.

47 starts uncovering the dishes. "Did you."

"Yes." She rests her chin on her knees, smiles dreamily. "I've never been to a beach before..."

It amazes him how much Nika can talk sometimes. She is capable of continuing a conversation solely by herself, a feat which, for all his training and specific skills set, 47 is fairly sure he would be unable to do. It is not unpleasant though. He listens and eats and gives a few neutral answers where appropriate, and to his surprise, doesn't find himself privately drifting off to plan tomorrow night's events. He has time to do that later anyway. By the time he's finished, he can hear the evening crickets from the balcony and Nika has morphed into a sleepy, soft-spoken creature, so different from the defensive, edgy attitude of her daytime self.

47 packs up the remaining food and stands. "Why don't you sleep," he suggests. He offers her his hand.

Nika takes it and pulls herself up, but doesn't let go. She looks up at him. "You know, I used to dream about this," she says quietly. "When I was with Belicoff."

He really wishes she would stop looking at him this way. "You're only here as a cover," 47 says, half to himself. He doesn't touch her gently, just there, on the cheek as he speaks. He is very careful not to.

Nika's smile is like a wound. "I know. But it's still true."

She lets go of his hand and goes to bed.

It takes a distractingly long time before he can focus on his work again. It is almost inefficient. But when the next night arrives, Nika fulfils her role suitably well and the hit is carried out, swiftly and neatly, and they are out of the mansion grounds just as the alarm is raised. That alone saves him nearly a week, so really, the end result is actually _more _efficient.

47 is a great believer in the ends justifying the means. Some might say he is a living testament to many other people's similar convictions.

That is why he continues to bring Nika along on assignments which would be assisted by either a female companion or distraction in some way. Because it's merely practical. Because she is merely a means.

///

It surprises him at first that Nika doesn't attempt to pull any of the absurd stunts she was constantly trying during their time in Moscow. After a couple of months, 47 stops anticipating it warily and starts to develop a routine of sorts – though not a _predictable _routine, because he of all people knows the danger of that. It works out to something like this: he sees Nika; he accepts and carries out certain assignments; at the same time, he tracks the men after Nika and retires the ones that come too close; at the same time, he takes counter-tracks and takes technically-defensive steps to deal with the men after him; at the same time, he sets up or continues to develop the enticingly plausible trails that promise to eventually lead to Nika in the same way a rainbow leads to a pot of gold; at the same time, he quietly gathers intel on the mood and plans of the various agencies. And then he checks on Nika again. It works out to an average of twice a month, or so. It is a busy life.

It isn't so bad at the beginning. Despite their proclaimed commitment, the other organisations are reluctant to waste resources on what they regard as the Organisation's problem, and the Organisation is reluctant to add to their growing headcount of failures. This leaves mainly the freelancers, who generally range between amateurs and very good amateurs. By contrast, the freelancers who are good enough to be agency-trained tend to leave him alone. 47 has the impression that most of them are watching him in the same way an audience watches a mass ring-match: they aren't going to help him if he goes down, but they aren't going to bring him down either. Considering the snowballing price on Nika's head, this is as good as having a fanbase.

Now with six months (and a day) left to go to the dateline, 47 is starting to notice a change in the intensity and proficiency of the attacks. He has already survived longer than any of the past men who have taken the agencies up on their offer. The various organisations have started to – not worry, but grow... _concerned._ Their men keep turning up in neat piles. None of the terms of agreement have been broken. 47 is careful to maintain a constant and sufficiently challenging schedule of assignments, and he still carries them out more efficiently than most other hitmen. And the freelancers, who usually work as an effective mass weapon of distraction, are getting increasingly reluctant to seek out the 'ghost's whore', let alone the ghost himself.

47 knows that very soon, the real storm will start. He is already surviving on an average of six hour of sleep daily, which is still manageable. He estimates that by the time it is three months to the ending date, this luxury will cut down to three to four hours a day. If all goes well, his preparations of the last seven months will ensure everything goes as planned. All he has to do is remain focused, execute the plans, and not get distracted.

It is around this time that Nika decides to start kissing him.

///

Really, he should have seen it coming. Nika may have been unusually subdued the first few times he saw her, but he has returned often enough that she no longer looks at him like it's the last time she's going to see him whenever he leaves. This is probably a bad thing, but it's still better than trying to handle the quietly repressed version of Nika.

On the other hand, _this_ is what happens when he has to handle Nika in her full impulsive self.

_Goddamnit, Nika._

47 stares at the woman in his arms. Even when unconscious, a hint of a smirk remains on Nika's lips. She tasted like wine, rich and sweet. She –

Goddamnit.

He carries her to the bed and drops her there. Then 47 spends the rest of day trying to ignore the phantom press of lips against his. He tries not to think of the way her lips curved under his. He tries not to think at all.

///

The second time catches him by surprise again; but by the third, he is ready.

"Nika," he says, "you have to stop this."

He is calm. He is reasonable. Nika spits a curse and rubs her neck, complaining about how his heartless attack will leave marks and how HE is the one who has to stop it, you goddamned psychopath.

Until he met her, 47 has never met any woman who swears quite like Nika.

He has every intention of giving her a short, biting lecture on a what she is going to stop doing effective immediately, the top of that short list being attempting (_failing_) to seduce him, but then Nika interrupts:

"I'm already wasting a whole goddamned afternoon doing this pointless exercise, the least you can do is hold still _and not fucking attack me_ when I'm just trying to kiss you!"

And that.

Is just.

_Unbelievable._

It had taken him ten minutes to even get Nika to _hold_ a gun properly. _Hold it._ And either Nika is deliberately aiming for everything _but_ the very large and perfectly unmoving target, or she has absolutely no hand-eye coordination and in 47's world, that's just not humanly possible. So if anyone is going to complain about having to spend an afternoon doing this _pointless _exercise, _it had better be him._

"Perhaps," 47 says acidly, "we should continue this when you're actually concentrating."

Nika mutters an insult at him and predictably, throws her gun at him. She glares at him even more when he catches it, as if taking it as a personal affront, and then stalks off muttering under her breath. 47 wonders if he should have let the gun hit him. She really is impossible sometimes. He represses a sigh.

Then he follows the only living mistake of his life back to her house and watches her swing between sulkiness and wicked teasing for the rest of the evening. It isn't amusing at all. He tries not to smile.

///

Yes, yes. He knows. He could done more to stop her.

And yes. He should have.

But the thing is this: 47 has given up on trying to make sense of things around Nika. It's easier to just accept her as she is, as some form of private and very feminine natural disaster, than try to control her. Despite everything she's seen him do, Nika still has an aggravating tendency to just _not_ listen to him. It's as if she carefully weighs what he says to discern just how far she can push it, and then goes for it. What's annoying is how good she is at it. She has an appalling amount of trust in his patience sometimes.

He does draw a line when she tries it in public, though. It's distracting enough in the relative safety of private spaces; in public, such a distraction could be fatal. For once, Nika actually seems to listen and doesn't do it again.

47 wonders what it means that she ignored all his previous orders in other places. Then he stops wondering, because it turns out he'd really rather not know.

///

It was a risk, but after he takes on two particularly challenging assignments consecutively, surviving on seventy-two hour days for a week to get the jobs done, the price on Nika's head finally moves up over his. And then it spikes sharply; doubles; doubles again; and overnight, the price on his head is mysteriously wiped down to a token amount and the attempts on his life slow dramatically. The tracking efforts to find the witness named Nika Boronina, on the other hand, jumps exponentially.

This is excellent news.

47 knows how the agencies think. The real problem here isn't Nika. The real problem is him.

He knows it and the Organisation knows it and the other agencies know it, and so on and on, in this infinite loop that always end up with the same point, flat as a fatal heartline:

He is the problem.

He let a witness live.

Except... within that problem, there lies another one. Small and diamond-hard and carefully crafted. And that inner problem is this: 47 is very, very good at what he does. In fact, he is unprecedentedly good. No hitman has ever managed to survive an all-out industry hit on his head for as long as eight months, _and_ keep a target alive and miraculously hidden, _and_ maintain an undisrupted professional life, as if unaffected by the private war waged on him by the major players of the killing industry. He is good enough, in fact, that he has become too valuable to retire.

47 knows that agencies, even his former Organisation, are unofficially (deeply) interested in recruiting (or re-recruiting) him as a resource. They would prefer that he gets cured of his weakness by a dose of death to the witness, as opposed to death to him. Not that they would be opposed to his retirement, of course, but... The focus is on the symptom named Nika Boronina now. And that goes perfectly to plan. It is far easier to protect Nika without constantly counter-tracking and taking down those after him too. The main issue now would be to keep Nika hidden, and make sure she doesn't do anything foolish to attract attention.

Also, getting some sleep would be nice. 47 is exhausted enough that he has been moving on numbed routine for the past few days, which can be deadly in a life where split-second reactions is the difference between breathing and the lack thereof. He is tired enough that it takes a while for him to realize that he is going through the motions that is a prelude to seeing Nika – the double-weaving and back-tracking and false clues and the acceptance of a simple cover assignment – all the things that allow him to see Nika without getting her killed in the process. It is dangerous and irrational and he should really, really be sleeping instead of going through with this idiocy, but it has also been nearly three weeks since he last saw her, and she always looks at him in that way he hates when he stays away for too long. Besides, he can rest on the flight there. He can handle this.

When 47 finally arrives at the vineyard, it's three in the afternoon for Nika and three in the morning for him. He finds her in one of the smaller plots, testing the soil with a look of concentration on her face. Even with her knees in the dirt, she's still dressed in an impractical dress of some sort, one thin shoulder strap falling over her shoulder.

He comes up behind her and touches her there lightly. Predictably, Nika starts. It's exasperating how easy it is to surprise her sometimes.

Nika turns; her face lights up. "Well _finally,_" she says, but she's smiling. She gets up and moves towards him; 47 takes a step back automatically. Nika stops obligingly.

"How long are you staying this time?"

"Just a few hours."

"Can you stay the night?" she asks hopefully.

She always asks this, even though his answer never changes. "No. Why do you even bother to ask?"

"Why don't you ever say yes?" she snipes back. 47 hopes she isn't going to start sulking. He really doesn't have the energy to deal with that.

But Nika merely looks resentful for a moment before the light returns to her eyes again. "Fine, don't. Come on, I want to show you something."

He follows her as she leads him out of the vineyard and into hilly terrain. 47 can feel himself slowly degrading into the unique mode he occasionally reverts to when the exhaustion or stress of a fight becomes too much. It's a mode which strips everything away but the core of him, leaving him deadly and crystal-sharp and perfectly, viciously detached – it's not something that Nika should meet. 47 is trying to fight the weight of weariness when he realizes that Nika has stopped.

She has brought him to a natural sniper's nest. They are on the rise of a hill, with good bush cover; and fields of green and rust-gold spread out before them. Their position is low enough that a normal scope would be sufficient for a headshot; but high enough that any approaching enemies would be spotted at a decent range. Knowing Nika, she probably just saw the view.

He joins Nika in sitting near the edge of the rise overlooking the terrain. She shifts closer and leans her head against him; 47 is too tired to move.

"I found it when I was exploring this area a couple of weeks ago," she says softly. "I like to come here sometimes, to think. It's so peaceful. Or sometimes I just come and watch the people below work. You know, they never look up?"

"People rarely do."

"Mm. I guess you don't expect anyone to be watching from above."

"I often count on it."

"Ha, with a _gun_."

"With a delivery," he corrects.

"Delivery." There is a tease in her voice. "How polite."

"I try."

He feels her smiling. 47 concentrates on staying awake. There is gentle breeze, and there is a sleepy hush settling around them, and...

He shakes himself mentally. This isn't working.

"Nika, I need you to keep watch."

She lifts her head, looks confused. "Keep what?"

"I'm going to rest for a few minutes," he translates patiently. "I need you to stay alert and wake me if you hear anything."

"Why, who are you expecting?"

"No one. But I won't be able to rest unless you do."

Nika looks amused. "Alright. If you insist on being paranoid. No, I will," she adds hastily, when he makes a quiet, irritated sound, "Really, I will. Trust me."

_Says the woman who never hears me coming_, 47 thinks. But really, if anyone finds Nika now, they deserve to.

He leans back on his elbows; then raises himself again and takes off his jacket. He hands it to Nika wordlessly. She takes it without any sign of abashment.

"I _like_ the way I dress," she retorts to his pointed look. One day he'll just let her shiver till she gives in and gets clothes that are practical enough to actually keep warm in.

47 lies back on the grass and covers his eyes with his arm. The darkness is a blessing. And Nika is safe and unharmed and next to him. He can afford to just... take a few...

When he wakes, the shadows have grown deeper and the sun has moved across the sky. 47 blinks, raises himself up slowly. There is a grateful restfulness in his muscles. He estimates he's slept for about two to three hours.

Nika smiles at him. "Welcome back. You survived."

His voice comes out sleep-rough. "I survived?"

"The horde of angry attackers." She smirks. "But then they saw me watching, and they surrendered on the spot. Because I'm that good."

"Clearly," 47 says dryly. "Why didn't you wake me?"

"For the horde?"

He gives her a look. She relents.

"Because you looked like you needed it. And you always wake up if you need to, and you didn't this time, so..."

She shrugs. The movement gets lost in his jacket, spread too big around her shoulders. In it, Nika looks small and fragile, like a girl lost. It makes a striking contrast with her knowing dark beauty, as if she can be two personalities at once. 47 has never once wondered why Belicoff had kept her for so long, even though the man was known for his fickleness. Not once.

The remnants of sleep are still low and drowsy in his head. So that may be why 47 allows himself to reach out. That may be why he is allowing himself to touch her now, precise and careful – just his thumb brushing her tattoo; just his palm cupping the side of her face. Practically means nothing at all. Nika stills, then she puts a hand over his, presses it warm and close. In her eyes, there is that terribly vulnerable wonder again.

Nothing at all.

He keeps his voice calm, as if his weakness wasn't a tangible thing between them. "You must not have moved much, for me not to wake."

"I've had practice." She sounds dazed. "I know a lot about not wanting to wake sleeping men."

"I see."

"Not that I didn't want to – I mean, not that I was afraid that – I didn't mean you're like the other..."

Her words stumble to a halt. Nika looks briefly miserable. Then she says, as if stating the simplest fact in the world, "I just want to be with you, that's all. I didn't mind."

Sometimes Nika has sulking tantrums and is irritatingly unreasonable with her cajoling demands that he stay longer, that he talks, that he tells her things that he sees no need for her to know. Then there are times when she does something like this: not move for hours so he can sleep, even though she knows he'll have to leave soon after. There are times when she blindsides him with a strike of quiet, sudden honesty, and he has no defences.

It's an unfair advantage. He was never trained for this.

47 pulls back, gets up. Nika looks up at him, anxious and uncertain. The light is fading, but he estimates there is still about an hour before it gets too dark to see.

Nika takes his offered hand and pulls herself up. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. You're going to practice."

"Practice what?" Then she realizes. "Oh for fuck's sake. Not again. I _hate_ that goddamned tree..."

She complains the whole way down the hill and to the field. 47 takes the time to get a grip on himself again. By the time they reach the spot, Nika has gotten impressively creative with her vocabulary. Anyone would think she suffered more than him in these trying lessons.

It's easy to keep Nika distracted. 47 thinks, as he watches her miss the target yet again (bad grip, and she _still _flinches when she pulls the trigger), that he can't do this. Not yet. Not now. He'll deal with one problem at a time. Right now he has to focus on keeping her alive, not to mention himself. And then, perhaps... once it's over...

Nika breaks his thoughts by throwing her gun to the ground. And then she breaks his irritation by startling him into another ambush, using his tie as leverage. At least she appears better at basic trickery than aiming. She smirks a lot more and concentrates a lot better after that, but she still misses spectacularly. 47 is too distracted to really care.

///

No.

He does want not to talk about that night.

First, because it shouldn't have happened. He can't afford to lose focus like that again. The worst so-called professionals are always the ones who have attachments while they work.

Second, very soon after that, 47 doesn't have much time to dwell on it. It's the ninth month, and there are only three months and a day left to go. On some days, he can't tell if its dawn or eventide. On most days, he doesn't have time to care.

///

The agencies start to devote an impressive amount of resources to finding Nika. They send men after him too, of course, but their efforts have more the quality of distraction than anything else, so that for periods of days, 47 doesn't have time to do anything by counter-ambush and counter-track and gather or force out intel that will keep him alive. It's a simple but unfortunately, effective method. He still has to keep up a schedule of assignments, track the many freelancers and agents after Nika, create false diversions, take down the ones that come too close, and very importantly, _sleep_. 47 has never been so tired in his life. And there are still so many weeks to go.

He takes Nika with him a couple more trips. Not so much as cover but – as a form of bait. He would give her a list of places she can go in the new city and leave her while he conducts his affairs. Her picture will be captured by security cameras and two days later, recognized by the agencies' bio-scanning devices. Then the sharks will smell blood in the water and come in a frenzy only to find him waiting. Technically, 47 is not allowed to go on the offensive; but he prefers to arrange the circumstances of his technically-defensive position. If he controls the leak of information well enough, he can draw out the men who he has marked as needing retirement.

Also, there is something... else. There is no evidence or reason to believe that any of her trackers are close enough to finding her that he has to pull her out of vineyard, but...

It's an instinct. And 47 has survived long enough in this business that he has learnt not to ignore them.

It is the same instinct that calls him back early from a task one evening. He has left Nika to her own devices as usual, but for once, she isn't back before him. He has just finished an eight-hour stake-out, and had planned to enjoy five-second dozes in a quick shower before heading out again to set up technically-defensive traps and ambush a potential contact. Except when he checks Nika's location, he finds her walking into a death trap. There is an instant where the world freezes, then 47 is a blur of movement – out of the hotel, through the maze of streets, down to the docks where there are far too many eyes that belong to one of the agencies. Where Nika is. When he finds her, he is so relieved and furious that he barely knows what he says. He takes her back and is forced to skip the shower, but the adrenaline shock keeps him alert for the rest of the night anyway.

After that, 47 decides against bringing Nika along. He doesn't have time anyway. It doesn't take long before his exhaustion starts to shave away everything but the core of him: trained killer, clinical and blindingly focused. All the matters is reaching the objective; the reasons behind it are irrelevant.

After a few weeks, 47 is down to surviving on this core mode almost constantly.

After a month more, he can't remember how else to be.

///

He gets a message from the agencies one month before the dateline.

The man before him is from one of the agencies that mark their agents with a code on the right side of their necks. Right now, that mark is obscured by the blood spilling from the slit in the man's throat.

47 shushes the gasping man soothingly, and aims the gun at his forehead.

"Wait." It comes out more as a gurgle than a word. Red life trickles from the corner of the agent's mouth. He rasps, "I have a message."

47 pauses. He doesn't move the gun. "Speak."

"An offer. If you--" The man chokes. More blood spittle. 47 waits impatiently. At this rate, he wouldn't need a bullet.

"If you eliminate the witness yourself," the agent manages finally, "your hit will be lifted. Your mistake wiped. Everything returns to before."

"Before," 47 says flatly. "Really."

The man is weakening rapidly. "Unofficial," he rasps wetly, "but my agency – has a position – for you. With full access – to all inter - intermediate intel."

Full access. Despite himself, 47 is surprised. "Anything else?"

The agent glares at him. 47 supposes he could wait for him to die. It would only take a few minutes more. But he doesn't have that much time to waste. So he retires the agent neatly and leaves his body with the other corpses. When he emerges from the alley, it is the lunch rush and no one looks twice at the shaven-head man in the business suit.

Full access. How... flattering. Back when he was under the Organisation, he'd always wanted – Anyway, it's a good sign. They're getting desperate.

Four weeks.

And then the witness Nika Boronina will be in the clear.

And then he can sleep for a full night instead of three-hour snatches in unsecure places.

And then it will all be over.

He can do this. He will do this.

47 has a faint feeling that he is forgetting something – not crucial to the objective, but...

It doesn't matter.

Four weeks.

He can do this.

///

A week later, the signal of Nika's trace dies out. There is a moment of blank shock – then 47 remembers why. And then he remembers what it is that had nagged at him yesterday: the visits. Of course. He hasn't had time.

He is tempted not to bother to go back anyway. There are only three weeks and a day left after all, and the trace on her is such a small detail of precaution... But even as he thinks that, 47 knows he's going to go. Details are what makes the difference between perfection and near-perfection; and in this business, it translates into the difference between life and death. And he hasn't come this far to leave anything to chance.

When he arrives, Nika sees him coming and goes to him. She demands to know where he's been; he deflects . She becomes theatrical and announces he is leaving her; he is short in his answer. Though even as he says it, 47 thinks that he might very well be leaving her at this rate: if someone was to attack him right now, he would be too tired to fight properly. The realization shakes him a little. It prompts him to accept the ever-present invitation to stay the night for once. Over dinner, Nika is subdued and agitated. It turns out that after all her show of asking in the past, she's actually uneasy with him staying. 47 doesn't really care. He doesn't. He just wants to sleep.

He sleeps till just before dawn. Then he wakes and goes to Nika's bedroom. She doesn't stir, even when he carefully draws the covers back and places the signal charger close to her neck, near the back of her ear. The charger locates the device and clicks three times, beeps. Nika's breathing doesn't even change. She really is a depressingly easy mark. 47 watches her sleep for a moment, then shakes himself. Despite his rest, he can still feel a heavy weariness deep in his bones, as if the hours were merely blinked away. He takes a breath. And then he leaves to fight for a new day.

The week passes bloodily.

Two weeks and a day left.

Another week passes, heavy with sulphur and smoke.

One week and a day.

One week.

Six days.

_Five. _

Then –

It happens.

Five days before it's all over, everything changes.

First, Nika gets found.

///

It is a chance thing that tips 47 off. Something a contact mentions in passing, an afterthought of an afterthought, hardly worth noticing. But 47 has been trained to notice every minor detail for so long that it might as well have been a shout. In the interrogation, the contact blabbers about the usual things: how everyone in the his network from Cairo to Stavropol is being hit for info about that Boronina bitch, not just him, oh god please stop, he doesn't know anything more etc etc. Except Stavropol is one of the largest regions of Russian wines, and even though Nika isn't located there, it is a close enough hit that it prompts 47 to question him further. It turns out that despite all the trails 47 has carefully laid that insist otherwise, there's an unknown who has been particularly interested in the rural wine-making regions of Russia. 47 doesn't bother with the camouflaging actions in getting to Nika this time: there is no time, and she is as good as compromised anyway. At the airport, he only hesitates briefly before he gets two tickets: at this stage, the safest option would be to take her with him. It's dangerous, but he doesn't have time to relocate her right now. He gets an extra return ticket anyway as an unlikely back-up plan, then spends the flight there reworking the change in his plans. And eighteen hours after he first hears the tip-off, 47 is in Nika's bedroom telling her they have to go.

(Notice that so far, this is merely a change of plans.)

(Notice that when a man like 47 uses a word like _everything_, he rarely exaggerates – and so far, this hardly changes everything.)

Everything changes, but not because Nika gets found. Not exactly. There are few truths in the world that 47 believes in, but when he does, he builds his world around them, absorbing them to be as undeniable as fact.

Such as: he is going to die violently one day, and he is going to die alone.

Such as: he will never be as good at doing anything else as he is at taking lives.

And recently, such as: Nika will never fully listen to him, and she will always wait.

This is how everything changes:

In the car, on the way to the airport. 47 is drained enough that he doesn't care to ask what it is that's bothering the woman beside him. Nika is nervously subdued beside him again, and he can tell she's trying to work up the courage to say something. He wishes she'll just say it. It's distracting him from planning the schedule of the next few days ahead.

And then Nika does say it, and he stops planning altogether.

She thanks him for giving her the vineyard.

She rambles on some more about how grateful she is, how she has everything she wants now.

Then she tells him this is the last time she'll be seeing him.

Then she tells him that she'll never forget him.

And the whole time she says this, she doesn't even look at him. Just straight ahead, clear and tense.

He actually asks her to repeat. That's how unbelievable it is. She's sharper and more brittle the second time, but the message is the same:

Nika wants him to stop visiting.

She wants him to leave.

And.

She is right, 47 thinks. He always knew it had to end sometime. Just not this way.

And.

This is actually a good thing. Because no matter how well he's done so far in this game, no matter how perfect his kills or precisely met his datelines in other assignments, Nika will always remain an unprofessional aberration...

And.

He only continued visiting her before for her sake, and now that he's freed of this obligation, he... She is a continuing mistake, and this is a chance to...

47 is so tired. That's why he can't think right now, why his head hurts; he needs to rest. Nika doesn't say anything for the rest of the drive, and pretends to sleep on the whole flight to their destination. She always was thoughtless as to planning, 47 thinks distantly. If she was going to say this, she should have said it at the end of the trip, not at the start.

Not that it matters, since he doesn't care either way.

This is probably why they teach trust as one of the worst flaws to have, back in the Organisation. Right after the flaw of mercy.

He has been such a fool.

By the time they get to the right hotel, 47 has deliberately shut down to his simpler mode, where everything is clearer and sharper and stripped of sentiment. Where everything is easier to deal with. He is arranging for the right room to book when there is a collective gasp around the room and all eyes are on the person behind him. Nika, of course.

Who has just caused a scene by swearing at a bellboy.

Who he has specifically told to keep a low profile.

Who has just made his work several times more complicated by drawing attention to herself.

Sometimes, Nika does something so naive and thoughtless and just fucking _stupid_ that he can't help but think, just for a moment: _this is never going to work. She isn't worth it._

Just before he turns to deal with the matter, 47 thinks of two things.

The first is a flash-memory of Nika, sitting on a hill rise with his jacket loose around her, quiet and darkly exquisite and achingly untouchable.

The second is of an offer made in an alley by a dying man, stark and uncomplicated in terms. A way back to his old life.

As he turns, 47 reminds himself that the problem isn't Nika. The problem is him.

Of course, where the solution lies is also ultimately up to him.


	2. A Comedy of Errors

**A Comedy of Errors**

So, fun fact! The common law "year & a day rule" does exist and is still in force in several jurisdictions.

Less fun fact: I originally planned this story to set out the base which would allow me to springboard off fun/sweet/smutty sequels, but I'm not sure that's happening now because reader traffic appears to be very low (sob). So just in case, I'm going to try to end off this story so it can stand by itself satisfactorily, but this is just a warning that there may be a few (not significant) plot threads that sort of linger. Sorry for any weird pacing in this chapter – this was the original 'one shot' the story was meant to be and serious modifications butchered parts of it.

Thanks so much to all who commented! You guys seriously keep me going :) And as always, thanks for all feedback.

* * *

///

Sometimes, even though it's been nearly a year since that cocksucker Belicoff was shot, Nika still gets mistaken as a whore on the streets.

This doesn't happen back home, where the neighbours all know each other by name, face and even goddamned birthday, and visitors are rare phenomena that happen maybe once a year, but whenever 47 takes her to a new city in some country she's never been in before, the odds are, Nika is going to get mistaken as a whore.

_What's your price?_ the man leers at her, or at least she thinks that's what he's asking – she's seen that same look before and the question is always the same.

Nika returns the mocking smirk, flips the sonofabitch the universal gesture for _fuck off_, and strolls on pass him without breaking her stride. When she returns to the hotel at the end of the day, 47 still isn't back and so she entertains herself by experimenting with the new make-up she bought.

She always returns to her usual look, but it's still worth trying.

///

Okay, so this is how Nika saw it happening:

She kisses 47; he stops resisting; they live – not happily ever after, because even her daydreams aren't _completely_ absurd – but they live_,_ and they live in a form of together. Sure, it'll probably be the kind of together that probably has more absences than actual presence, more silences than actual conversations, but _still_. Together. That kind that says he doesn't mind her being difficult sometimes. That assures her that he will always come back to her, even though that silent bastard never tells her where he's going or when or for how long. That – and is the important bit – that he would want to. That he would want her.

This is what really happens:

47 kisses her, in the cloaking darkness of a hotel room in some obscure backwater country – and nothing else changes. In the morning after it happens, she wakes and finds him already dressed and planning his next assignment at the table. Everything looks so jarringly ordinary and unremarkable that Nika doesn't dare act like it's any other day, like last night didn't happen – and nothing else changes. When he drops her off at the airport, he treats her the same as ever, calm and indifferently tolerant, and by the time Nika has shaken off her confusion to find her words, he's already driven off – and nothing else changes.

And now, four weeks and two days since that night in the hotel (so she's been counting, _so what_), they still haven't talked about it and still _nothing fucking changes. _

No, actually, something _has _changed: Nika hasn't kissed him since. It's cowardly, she knows. But what if he shakes her off again; or worse, what if he sits her down, gives her that _look_, and explains to her that no, it meant nothing; really Nika, what did you expect?

Okay, so that latter scenario is a little far-fetched – Nika can't imagine 47 sitting down to actually have a heart-to-heart with her like that – but he might still give her that flat, unimpressed look that pretty much says it all. And if that's the reality of it, then Nika doesn't want to face it just yet. When he does see her, 47 seems to spend most of the time looking through her, as if already distracted by something better, and Nika sometimes wonders whether she just dreamt it all. If she just wanted it so much she could imagine it into a false memory.

It would help if they actually talked about it.

...Of course, it would also help if there was world peace, but Nika doesn't waste dwelling on impossibilities and so she mostly focuses on trying to remember every detail of that night, polishing and polishing the memory until it is solid and warm. It is a small stone of hope she holds on to when he leaves her without a word for weeks, or when he says something particularly harsh or indifferent, something the bastard tends to do more often these days; or basically, in any other times when Nika wonders whether this is going to lead anywhere at all. Whether 47 thinks that night in the hotel was a mistake.

Because believe her, Nika does wonder. All the time.

///

There are two sides the 47: when he is thinking about an assignment, and when he is not thinking an assignment.

The girls like to hear about that not-thinking-about-assignment side. Nika doesn't tell them about the alternative. She doesn't want to ruin their illusions.

"So tell us about how you got your own place," Roza says. The other girls huddled nearby look at her with idle interest. There is faint drizzle spoiling the night tonight, and the tricks are slow to come out. Nika is standing under an abandoned shop's overhang with the rest of the girls, shivering and keeping close to Roza for warmth.

"Again?" Nika complains, but her heart isn't really in it. "Didn't I just tell that like two weeks ago?"

Roza rolls her eyes. "Honey, you got anything better to share?"

"No," she mutters. 47 still hasn't visited her this month, the bastard.

"Well then." They all look at her expectantly.

It's probably sad or ironic or something, but it turns out the only people that Nika can be comfortable and herself around with is a killer and a bunch of whores. So these are her friends, or close to it – they are friendly and banter with her easily enough, but she knows they don't think of her as one of them. That's alright – Nika doesn't want to be. She is careful to only come see them every couple weeks or so, as if her past life can be kept at bay by both actual and metaphorical distance. She got out of this business with the unexpected kindness of a dark-eyed miracle, and there's no way in hell that she's ever going back. Even if the business seems to find her no matter where she goes.

It is the girls who find her more than she finds them, really. She had gone into the nearest town in a futile effort to convince herself that aside from her vineyard, her life _isn't_ just one long waiting game for a man who never stays more than a handful of hours. It had taken her one goddamned hour by what must be the shakiest, loudest bus in Russia, and when she'd finally arrived, the sky was already darkening. Nika had wandered the small town, feeling disheartened and lonely. It hadn't taken much longer before she found herself in the district that every town had, and found three menacing and determined-looking whores approaching her.

_Listen, new girl_, Roza had greeted her. _This corner is taken. Unless you're looking to get into a tochka, you gotta find another place, you hear?"_

Nika had bristled at that. _I'm retired_, she'd snapped.

_Uh-huh,_ said another woman sceptically. _Sure you are honey. Then why do you still walk like you're the best sex on high heels?"_

_"Not that I wouldn't if I could do that," _the third girl had piped in. She had looked seventeen, which meant that she must have been fourteen. Nika hasn't seen her since.

_Habit_, Nika had shrugged, ready to walk off. Then she remembered that she has no real place to go, and they were the first people in weeks outside her field workers and old Alexei who had spoken to her without laughing behind her back. It had been depressing enough that she'd suggested, _I can show you_, just to have some company. And that had been her first step into integrating herself with this new crowd.

They like her at first because she shows them tips to hook tricks and because cars always slow down whenever she stands in the corner with them. Then they like her even more when they find out that she's one of the lucky ones – that is, one of those ex-whores who managed to hook a trick for life to make a living as a mistress instead. They like to ask her for stories in the same way children ask for fairy tales at night. Nika tries to translate her new life into terms they can understand: a man who gave her a place of her own who doesn't own her; the freedom to come and go as she pleases and not get beaten for it. She doesn't bother trying to explain that he doesn't actually fuck her – well, except that one-time _mistake: _they'll just think she's making it up.

Roza is the only one who actually listens beyond the stories. After Nika finishes her pretty tale of the magic white envelope and the girls around them have drifted off in their private worlds of what-ifs, Roza nudges her with her shoulder.

"So how's the happy ending going?" she asks quietly.

Nika shrugs. "More ending than happy."

The older woman flashes her a quick grin. "Prince Charming not lasting too long in bed? Always preferred it that way, myself."

"No, not that." Nika hesitates. "He's been busy lately, that's all," she says lamely. She knows what it translates into, in their trade: _He's losing interest, that's all._

That's all.

"Huh," Roza says. The rain patters down heavier for a moment; they huddle closer instinctively. "Well, don't fuck it up."

Easier said than done, Nika thinks. She fucks things up without even trying.

///

Some weeks after that night in the hotel, Nika gets lost in yet another city where they seem to speak every language except English and Russian. 47 tends to use her as cover in cities where the locals match her colouring, so as for her to slip under the radar better; unfortunately, he also tends to bring her to cities where she has no fucking clue how to communicate. Even the maps are incomprehensible – by the time she realizes that the place she _thought she was at _when she made that crucial left-turn was not actually the place she _really was at_, it is too late to try to retrace her steps. The good news is, she recognizes the name of the street she is currently on.

The bad news is, this is because the street name is on the list that 47 had left on the hotel table that morning, with the title being: AVOID THESE PLACES.

It is really getting quite dark.

Nika has just decided to try to ask another one of local passer-bys, one that preferably didn't simply scowl at her, mutter unintelligibly and walk off before she can ask him to please fucking repeat, when a shadow looms before her and grabs her by the arm. It drags her to a side-street before she can even so much as yelp for help.

"Do you deliberately try to be difficult, Nika?" It turns out the shadow is a very pissed off hitman. Nika shuts her mouth. "Or do you just have a death wish?"

Her relief is abruptly cut by her anger.

"Don't fucking talk to me like that," she snaps back, flaring up; "I've been wandering around this godforsaken city for three hours and I would have been back by now if one of these idiots here actually gave me directions that weren't _wrong_ and actually _understandable--_"

"There is," 47 says bitingly, "an invention called a map—"

"I FOLLOWED the stupid map and it led me HERE. If you actually told me anything before you bring me- _ow you're hurting me!_"

He lets go of her wrist. For a brief second, 47 looks uncertain; and then the moment passes and he is merely watching her steadily while she rubs her arm.

"If you intend to do something like this again," he says after a pause, "do it after the function tomorrow, when I no longer need you as a cover. It would set my plan back if I had to find another woman to replace you."

He turns away and walks off, clearly expecting her to follow. For a moment, Nika is so furious and so sickened that she nearly refuses out of spite. Then she remembers where she is and who he is, and follows.

There are faint streaks of dust on the back of his suit. Nika curses the man in her head the whole way back, and wonders how he found her in a city of a million others. She supposes it doesn't matter.

///

This is how 47 kisses: very gently, as if it is the one act he has never been taught to be violent at; very slowly, as if savouring the taste of wine for the first time. He is tender and even a little clumsy, like a young lover, and he kisses like he means it. He is nothing like what Nika imagined he would be like.

She relives the night in her mind a great deal, in the weeks after it happens. How he was so careful, as if he might break her. How he let her into his mouth so she could explore him in quick greedy licks; how she felt him lose the fight against himself and respond with the same hungry invasion. How his fingers curled around her hipbones, tentative and possessive; how his hands had slid breathlessly up the soft curve of her waist, hitching to a pause by the side of her breasts. How...

Nika remembers how much 47 had wanted her.

What worries Nika is that even in her own mind, she has come to think of that longing in past tense.

What really worries Nika is that lately, 47 is starting to visit her less and less frequently. She wonders if he is avoiding her.

///

Another time it had happened: in Berlin.

_What's your price?_ the man grins at her, and then actually repeats it in English. Just in case she didn't get the message the first time.

_Fuck you too_, she answers sweetly. She would stalk off for dramatic effect, except 47 had told her to stay in this market square till noon and she hasn't finished shopping yet. She picks up a scarf at random and pointedly ignores the fucker.

_Come on, sweetheart_. The man actually has the balls to continue grinning at her. _I'm clean and I'll pay you good money, I haven't seen a girl like you before. How about it?_

_I'm retired_. She spins around and glares at him. _So fuck off._

The sonofabitch actually laughs. _You aren't retired. Anyone can see that. Ok, ok, I'll find you tonight when you're off your break. Which street do you usually walk?_

She gives him a random street she saw on the way the market square, gives him the most inconvenient hour she can think of without sounding suspicious, and tells him to be on time. She ends up having to buy the scarf for stretching it too much.

There is a howling thunderstorm that night. Nika watches it while waiting for 47 to get back, and hopes the fucker drowns. She falls asleep curled up in the chair by the window, but when she wakes in the middle of the night, she's on the bed, the sheets empty and cool beside her. She smiles to herself in the darkness and returns to sleep feeling a little less worthless than before.

(Of course, those were the days when 47 still preferred to sleep separately, and still had odd flashes of thoughtfulness. Nowadays he doesn't care where he sleeps either way, but he doesn't bother to move her either. Nika tries not to wonder if the trade-off was worth it. She tells herself it's too late for regrets anyway, then regrets thinking that at all.)

///

"It's not that he's cruel," Nika explains thickly. "He's just so – so fucking _efficient_. And I think he thinks I'm not efficient enough to fit in his life. Does that make sense?"

Roza frowns, passes her the bottle unsteadily. "No. Does this have to do with sex?"

"And the worst part is," Nika says with the dogged gravity of the determinedly drunk, "he's probably right. That bastard's_ always_ right."

The whore looks at her. "Nika," she says. "_Don't_ fuck it up."

///

Nika can go on and on about the list of things she pretended not notice, that should have tipped her off that it was coming, but really, it comes down to this:

The way 47 stops talking to her.

No, she's in denial again; the truth is worse:

The way 47 stops _listening_. Half the time, even if he is physically in the same room as her, his mind isn't. Lately, he is colder, sharper, and he looks at her like she's just another object in the room. Lately, he barely looks at her at all.

Nika tries not to notice. She tries really, really hard. It's not something she's done for a long time, since whoring is a profession which demands an unflinching grasp of reality and consequences if you want to live past your first year, and up to nearly a year ago, Nika had never been anything but a whore since she was twelve. If she still lived in that world right now, she would be desperately crafting whatever image or personality her owner wanted her to be in order to keep his interest and by very direct implication, her life.

But despite what everyone seems to think, Nika is no longer in that business. And because she loves that cold bastard this stupidly much, she tries very, very hard not to notice.

Unfortunately, the rules of life haven't changed much since she was a child-whore. Ignoring reality still doesn't work. Often, it comes back to bite you in the ass.

///

She is so used to 47's visiting that it takes only a few days difference before she realizes he is late.

Technically, there is no set schedule – god forbid that he actually does something _she understands_ – but Nika sets her internal clock by the days between each visit, and the longest he has ever left her alone (except for directly after the whole Belicoff affair, when Nika wasn't even sure he was alive for nearly three goddamned months) is three weeks. Sure, his absences have been longer and longer these days, but it has already been three weeks and five days since his last visit. Nika forces her uneasiness down and reminds herself that 47 is the best at what he does, and so there's no need to worry – no, not even a bit.

Four weeks after his last visit, Nika is worried.

Four weeks and three day after his last visit, Nika is sure that 47 must have finally left her, that heartless fucking _coward_. She spends the whole day spit-cursing him; and then the rest of the evening forcing her heart from her throat. She spends the rest of the week mostly sleepless and terrified. She just wants him to come home.

Five weeks and one day after his last visit, 47 does.

Nika runs out to meet him and catches him at the edge of her second field. She doesn't know whether to hug or hit him – he is watching her warily, and she is sure he would deflect either as he usually does. So instead she does something stupider, because she needs a release for all the anger and terror and heartache of the past weeks – and for fuck's sake, because it would be a perfectly reasonable question if 47 was a normal man.

Nika asks – _demands_ to know where he has been.

47 shuts down instantly. He hates it when she asks him about his activities, Nika knows. He says instead, in a tone as blank as his face, "You won't be seeing me for some time."

She stares. "What?" she manages. "Why?"

He ignores that as well. "Or it may be possible that you won't see me again. In that case--"

"You're leaving me," Nika says numbly.

The man pauses. "No," he says. But Nika has had enough men lie to her in her life that she recognizes an untruth when she hears one.

They look at each other silently. Nika thinks she might be in shock. That would explain why she isn't crying.

"Do me a favour?" she says, when she is sure can speaking without her voice breaking down. "Bring me out one last time. I want to see another part of the world again before--"

--_ you leave me_.

She can't say it.

47 sighs. He looks very tired suddenly. "I'll think about it," he says. "I'm very busy, Nika."

"Please," she says. She isn't begging. 47 looks at her and unexpectedly, raises a hand to press lightly against her cheek. It is the first time he has touched her like this in months. Nika is so startled she doesn't even lean into it until he pulls back again.

"I'll think about it," he repeats.

They are quiet as they head to the house. For once, 47 accepts her offer to stay the night. During dinner, he looks like he needs sleep more than food. He heads to the guest room without hesitation afterwards.

In the morning, though Nika gets up at dawn, she finds his door open and his bed empty. Somehow, it hurts more than she doesn't even feel surprised than the fact that he actually left.

///

As an act of defiance, Nika takes the bus into town. So that even if 47 came back, she wouldn't be there, and that would show that _bastard..._

Right. Nika still can't believe he left her. She just can't.

It's only mid-afternoon, but she goes to where Roza lives. Roza had scribbled her address on the back of her hand one night, and Nika isn't sure if that amounts to an open invitation but frankly, right now she doesn't care. She just needs someone to talk to and if Roza is pissed off enough to break up with her as well, then so be it.

The building is a squat, smudged thing along street of other squat, ugly buildings. There's no security to speak off, so Nika makes her way up the creaking stairs and goes down the corridor till she sees the right unit number. She knocks, waits, and then knocks again, louder this time. There is a muffled curse, a thump, and then the door swings violently open.

It's the first time she's seen Roza without her garish make-up on. The older woman glares blearily.

"The sun is still fucking up, so you better have--"

"He's leaving me," Nika says dully. The words feel thick and heavy on her tongue. It makes it sound like it's really happening.

Roza blinks. "Oh." She looks at Nika. "You better come in."

The place is pretty much one room with an adjoining bathroom without a door. There is a bed shoved in the corner, a half-open wardrobe, a small kitchenette and a full-length mirror, but other than that, there isn't much else. Roza sits heavily on the bed and gestures at Nika to follow suit.

"So," her host starts matter-of-factly. "You fucked it up. How?"

Nika draws her legs up, hugs them to herself. "Don't know. He just – I think it's because I got stupid."

"What do you mean?"

Nika closes her eyes. "You know," she says miserably. "I tried to get – feelings involved. My feelings. Fucking stupid, right?"

She hears Roza sigh. "Oh jeez. You can't be serious."

"And that's not all," Nika says, unable to stop. The words bubble out of her like a poison released, all the unhappy fears and gnawing insecurities of the past months seeping out like bad blood from a broken scab: "I'm difficult, I argue with him all the time, I always ask him to stay longer than he wants to. And I know he thinks I ask too much– except that's not fucking _fair,_ because all I just want--"

"All _you _want? Nika, look at me."

She opens her eyes. The woman is staring at her like she's grown a second head.

"When has what you want ever mattered?" Roza says incredulously. "Nika, he's your _owner_. What the hell have you been doing?"

"He's not my owner," Nika snaps for the hundredth time, "He's--"

The slap rings out between them.

Amazement first; then the stinging pain swells and Nika curses, covers her cheek with her hand. She stares at the whore. Roza shakes her wrist.

"Honey," she says calmly. "Wake up. It's all very sweet that you've gone all soft on him but he bought you the moment he took you from the other man and let you live on that land of his. No one's free in this world, sweetcakes. And you sure as hell should have known it. So stop playing pretend and start cleaning your shit up."

The sad thing is, Roza is actually being kind. Her friend. Nika doesn't know whether to be grateful or despairing.

There is a wet heat in her eyes that is starting to match the burn of her cheek. Nika looks down, wipes her eyes surreptitiously.

"What should I do?" she mutters.

"You know what to do."

"Play the trick," Nika says drearily. "Be what he wants." She looks up. "I'm not sure if he's coming back."

"But he might?"

She hesitates. "I asked... He might. Maybe."

"Then you know what to do," Roza says simply.

Nika is quiet for a moment. "Thanks."

She means it.

Roza shrugs. "Hey, whatever." She watches Nika carefully while Nika collects herself, then gets up from the bed along with her.

At the open door, they look at each other. Roza leans her head against the door frame and looks at her. "You're not the only one who needs hope, you know," she says softly. Then she shoots Nika a shit-eating grin. "Come back with a story or not at all."

Nika tries a grin back. It doesn't quite fit. "Don't fuck it up," Nika agrees. She doesn't mention that it's probably too late.

///

It's depressing, but it doesn't take long for her to come to the conclusion that 47 would prefer her as the exact opposite of who she is.

She has seen him looking at her sometimes, this distant, focused look, as if trying to see past her into the future. Trying to see the problems she would bring.

Unfortunately, Nika can see it only all too clearly.

She sulks too much. She clings to him at times, teases him too often, and argues with him all the time, _especially_ if she knows he's right. She's maybe a little unreasonable sometimes and _fine_, so maybe she doesn't always follow his instructions most of the time – but honestly, sometimes he's just so goddamned _paranoid_. And she knows she touches him too often, all the tiny random gestures of affections that Nika can't help and that 47 hates. He always tenses as if he's stopped himself from throwing her off just in time.

So.

Nika is going to be the exact opposite.

She's going to be pleasant; she's going to be agreeable. She's not going to sulk. She's going to show 47 that she's not only perfectly _fine_ with his leaving her; she's grateful for everything he's done and not upset _at all_ because Nika Boronina isn't needy or emotional or volatile, she's problem-free and _independent_ now (whatever the hell that means). And then 47 will change his mind and decide to give her a second chance, and all Nika will have to do then is be the professional she knows she was once, and not cry or punch the bastard in the throat.

It's a perfect a plan as she can come up with.

The only problem is that it all hinges on the hope that that cold fucker actually does come back.

Please come back.

///

He comes back.

He comes a little under three weeks later, and Nika is ready. She has practiced the right attitude and the right words and the right everything.

Her jaw hurts from all the goddamned practice smiles.

"Get your things," he says as soon as he finds her in the bedroom. He looks even wearier than he did the last time she saw him. Nika grabs her bag and follows him into the car downstairs.

47 passes her the flight tickets silently and starts up the car. As usual, he is ignoring her. Nika is pretty sure he is operating on just ingrained routine alone. He still drives absurdly well for a man who looks half-asleep, though.

Half-way through their four hour drive to the airport, she manages to gather enough nerve to speak.

"Listen," she says brightly, "I've never actually thanked you for everything you've done for me--"

"Forget it," he says shortly. Nika always suspected he appreciated that she never brought the topic up. It looks like she was right. Goddamnit. She forces herself to continue.

"Alright, but... I still want to say thank you. You've given me everything. You've given me reasons to live. And since this is probably the last time I'm seeing you, I just wanted to say I'll always be grateful."

She swallows her misery. And Nika says, pleasant and steady, "I'll never forget you."

47 doesn't say anything for a moment. The hum of the engine fills the car. Then,

"What?"

Nika resists the urge to curse. Fucking fantastic. The one day she needs him to pay attention to how very reasonable and non-needy she's being, and 47 looks exhausted enough that he probably shouldn't be driving, let alone concentrate on two things at once.

"I said I'll never forget you," Nika repeats, perhaps a bit too bright and hard. "You changed my life. Et fucki – et cetera. But I guess we both knew it had to end sometime."

She actually manages to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

She looks down at the tickets in her hands. There are two sets of tickets: two for the flight there, and, she sees with a sickening jolt, only one for the flight back. She supposes that he would tell her to head back by herself after he finishes his job and gets himself free of this last favour to her. Nika tells herself it is only logical, nothing personal.

(It's _all_ so goddamn personal to her)

She waits to see if 47 is going to say anything, maybe miraculously give in and commend her on her newfound maturity, but of course, he doesn't. His expression is so still that he might as well have not heard her at all. Nika is pretty sure that crying is something that Perfect New Nika wouldn't do, so she closes her eyes, rests her forehead against the cool windowpane. The tickets are a cold fact in her hand. He hadn't even doubted that he would change his mind.

The rest of the drive is a silent one. Nika tries to remember when their silences were comfortable rather than heavy, leaden things. It feels like a lifetime ago.

///

By the time they reach their hotel, Nika doesn't have the energy to put on the rabidly-pleasant act anymore. 47 hadn't spoken to her once during the whole six-hour flight there, and she had pre-empted his usual exasperated instruction to _Go to sleep, Nika_ by dutifully keeping quiet for once. Nika had spent most of the six hours reminding herself how terrible her life used to be and how fucking happy she should be right now. Goddamn him.

47 is negotiating the room he wants at the front desk. Nika has heard him do this before: a series of casual, easy-flowing questions that eventually identifies a room with a balcony that has an empty room adjacent to it. He always gets the room adjacent to the room-with-a-balcony, and then goes ahead and stays in the balcony-room when the bell boys leave anyway. Sometimes, he doesn't stay in either; just the one directly above or below the one he orders.

Apparently, tonight is one of those times.

He gets the room on the ninth level which, from what Nika can tell, has an empty balcony-attached room below it. The receptionist smiles at him, and he smiles back politely (goddamn him), and the bellboy comes to pick their stuff up. Just as he brushes past her, she sees that knowing half-grin, that familiar tug of his eyes undressing her...

"Fuck off," she snaps. She regrets it as soon as the words are out of her mouth.

The receptionists, guests and pretty much everyone standing within hearing range looks shocked. Only 47 looks displeased, but he recovers quickly.

"I'm sorry," he says, sounding appropriately embarrassed. "It's been a long day for us. And allow me."

The last bit is addressed to the bellboy. 47 takes the bags from him and steers her towards the elevators, like a concerned parent. Once the lift doors close, however, the act drops.

"I've told you not to draw attention to yourself," he says tightly. "Do you _never_ listen?"

"I'm sorry," Nika says meekly. _Sorry that I only get to tell them to fuck off after they actually tell me I'm still a whore_. But she knows better than to say that right now. She can't remember the last time she's seen 47 look so furious.

Her apology puts 47 off-guard, robs his anger of its target. He stares at her, his mouth a hard line, until the lift doors open. Nika shifts uneasily.

"Don't do it again," he says flatly. He walks out without looking back.

They are on the eighth floor. She was right about the room after all.

///

47 continues to be angry with her over the next few days. She wouldn't have realized, except she knows what 47 is like when he _isn't _angry, and the difference is enough. He's a little more abrupt in his movements, a little harsher in his tone, but other than that, he's looks as dispassionate as ever. He does tell her that she can't go anywhere outside the hotel for the whole time they're there, and then looks at her as if waiting for her to erupt, but of course, she doesn't. It's not as if she's not used to it – Belicoff used to keep her trapped in apartments for weeks on end. In this case, four days is already far too short.

47 leaves her almost as soon as they check in, so she spends the next day swimming and day-dreaming by the hotel pool. It's nice to be in such clean, large spaces of water – it reminds her of that beach in Greece. She should ask him to take her to a country with nice beaches again one day, Nika thinks absently. Then she remembers how he probably doesn't plan to see her after this. Suddenly the pool room feels suffocating. Nika grabs her bathrobe, dries herself off furiously, and heads back.

When she reaches their room, 47 is back before her, for once. He puts his gun back down when he sees it's just her, then continues loosening his tie. His jacket is already crumpled in the bin, smelling strongly of engine oil.

There are black specks staining his shirt. He nods tersely at her. "Where have you been?"

Nika shrugs. "In the pool." She leans back against the door. "Wallowing in self-pity."

For a second, his lips quirk; then 47 simply looks tired and suppressed-angry again.

"You can shower first," he says, even though she hasn't said she was going to. Nika doesn't argue; she walks past him into the bathroom.

After her shower, Nika wipes the mist from the mirror and stares at the woman in it. With only the faintest smudges of her make-up, she looks younger and softer somehow.

"What are you going to be when you grow up, sweetheart?" she asks her younger self.

Her younger self simply looks sad. Nika takes a breath, and watches a flicker of determination cross the girl's face. Well. No point stalling...

When Nika leaves the bathroom, it is with less make-up and more clothing than she's ever worn since she was twelve. She walks with her head high and her eyes defiant. She only hopes that 47 doesn't notice how much she is trembling.

///

By the fourth day, Nika is ready to give up on trying to show 47 her new (fake) side. She wishes she would. It would make her life so much less painful.

She still isn't used to going about naked and bared to the world. Eyeliner, but no smouldering eye-shadow. A smooth transparent gloss for her lips instead of deep, sultry red or even camoflaging nudes. Slim dark jeans and simple, close-fit shirts. Nika has to resist the temptation to duck her head whenever someone glances at her. She hates it, but least no one is going to mistake her for a whore anymore. It is a small comfort.

If anyone else in the hotel notices the change in her look, no one comments on it. For most part, 47 leaves her to her own devices, and Nika has taken to wandering the hotel, driven by a mix of boredom and loneliness. 47 only comes back deep in the night or early mornings, smelling of blood or smoke or some other telltale scent of brutality. It would have been hard enough to try to convince him of the clean new goddamned sensible her, but it's fucking _impossible_ when he is not even there to begin with. He has never been this absent before, not in any of his past missions. She can't understand why he is so angry with her. If he didn't want to take her out for this last time than maybe he just fucking _shouldn't have_.

(No, no, she doesn't mean that. Despite it all, this is still better than nothing. How pathetic is that? Perhaps... perhaps he's just annoyed because he _doesn't_ like how she looks now. But there had been a moment when she stepped out of the bathroom, defiant and uncertain, that Nika thought he had. 47 had been slumped in a chair across the room, and he'd opened his eyes just as she walked out. Surprise; then before his calm-iron mask had dropped back down again, she thought she'd glimpsed a flash of something darker, hungrier. Which goes to show how desperate she's become because, goddamn him, the bastard treats her even colder than ever and Nika still doesn't know what else he wants her to be.)

Nika is just climbing the winding stairway that joins the ground floor to the first and second floor, and trying to imagine a life by herself when someone calls to her.

She looks up.

It is that bright-haired young man, a guest she's seen flirting with the receptionists. He's fairly good-looking, and has a nice laugh. He opened a door for her once, and flushed when she smiled at him. He grins at her now, rocking uncertainly on his heels on two steps above her. She is about to smirk back automatically when he says,

"So, how much?"

Nika feels the back of her throat dry up.

"What?"

He nods at her, still smiling anxiously. He's probably a good man, no girlfriend, assumes the best of most people he meets. And to her, he says,

"How much for a night? No, er, special needs or anything. Just the usual stuff."

Something inside Nika breaks.

"How much do you think I'm worth?"

He looks apprehensive. "Two hundred for a night?"

Crazy rich foreign fucker. Something of her surprise must have shown in her eyes because he says hopefully then, "So, do I go to front desk or--?"

"It's illegal here, you moron," she snaps.

"Oh, right, sorry." He looks like he is about to ask what she's doing here then, but then a new appreciative light darkens his eyes. "Two fifty," he says. "Straight-up."

So much for nothing special. For some reason, she always attracts the ones who like to be dominated, or worse, to dominate.

Nika is sick of this, suddenly. She just wants to get back to her room and curl up under the sheets. "Not here," she says. She's barely wearing any make-up. "Not tonight." She's even wearing practical clothes. "Meet me tomorrow at seven in front of the nearest park. Don't be late."

She moves past him even before he agrees. She can feel the weight of his eyes pressing up against her as she passes.

Nika hopes that it fucking _hails_ tomorrow. _Hard._

Then she has to stop again because another shadow is blocking her way. This time, when she looks up, a calm-eyed hitman is looking back down at her.

Her stomach drops. Nika is suddenly very aware of how clearly she can hear everything in the floor below.

"I wasn't--" she starts urgently, but 47 cuts her off:

"We're staying in the room opposite ours tonight. I've already moved everything."

He turns and starts moving up the stairs. Nika hesitates, then hastily follows.

"Alright," she says uncertainly. "But --"

"Stay alert," 47 continues, as if she hadn't spoken, "Something isn't right. I have a – task that only ends at midnight. Stay in the room till then."

All he cares about is his goddamned assignments. Nika tries for the last time, "Okay, but if you heard anything--"

"Nika." She can't see his face, but his voice comes to her flatly. "What or who you do in your time is not my business. You don't have to justify anything to me."

Everyone assumes she's still a whore. Nika can handle that. But this, _this_ is the first time she ever thought that 47 actually thinks it too. For a moment, she can't breathe from the tightness in her chest.

They have reached the landing. Nika stops to face him, but now she can barely look at the fucker. It hurts too much.

"Fine," she spits out. "I guess I'll fuck whoever pays me the best, and you can go kill for whoever pays you the best. But don't you fucking dare pretend we're any different. You sell yourself out as much as I ever will, the only difference is at least I get to see _who fucks me over when it happens!_"

She has dropped into Russian somewhere along the line; it happens when she is too angry to control her English. But Nika knows that he understands Russian just fine. Which is why it makes it worse when 47 doesn't even bother to change his expression. She's not even worth that effort anymore.

The shaven-head hitman nods slightly to the lifts. "Go up," he tells her. His tone is perfectly level. "I still have a few things to arrange."

She doesn't look back.

It takes a long time before she finally drifts into an uneasy sleep. She promises herself this is the last time she cries for him, or any other man. Before she drifts off, Nika thinks that maybe she will meet that trick outside the park after all. There seems to be no point in fighting the world anymore.

///

It is the aftershock of the explosion more than the sound itself that wakes her.

Her teeth rattle in the shaking. Nika sits up in the darkness, disorientated, and then she's stumbling out of bed, switching the light on; then cursing and flicking it off. Turning the light on during an attack is exactly what 47 once told her _not_ to do. In the brief moment it flashes on, though, Nika sees enough to know that she is alone in the rooms. She stumbles over a chair in her night blindness, manages to find the bed again, and crawls underneath it. There is already a gun carefully placed there, and a smoke bomb. Nika grabs the cold metal, tries to control her rattling teeth, and swears never to call 47's hotel routines paranoid ever again.

It takes over a minutes for her to do this, acting on panic and muscle memory alone – she is _never_ resisting his training attempts ever again, _never_ – and by the time she does, the screaming and shouting from the floor above have dropped into a deadly silence. Occasionally, there is the sound of running footsteps above and in the corridor outside, but mostly, all Nika hears is her own rapid breathing and even more thunderous heartbeat. She tries to remember what it means – gunfire means police, amateurs; silence means...

No one is coming after her; they're only after 47 and he isn't here. She's _nobody_...

Nika bites her teeth down together and tries to stop the rest of her body from shaking. The gun is cold and heavy in her hand.

Then, she is aware that she is no longer alone. The front door in the main room has swung silently open: she can see the shaft of yellow corridor light captured between the frames of the partly open bedroom door, a shadow moving through.

Then, she is aware of a very loud silence in the air. It is the sound of someone listening very closely, and moving very, very quietly.

It occurs to Nika that while she knows that 47 isn't here, his enemies might not.

_Never trap yourself_, 47 says in her head. _Remember your exits._

Move, Nika tells herself desperately. Come on, you stupid bitch.

She has to move now.

She has to move.

She has

to

_MOVE!_

Nika moves.

She pulls the pin, throws the bomb and throws it towards the bedroom door, in the space between the invader in the main room and the bedroom. At the same time she rolls out from under the bed, staggers to her feet and runs to the window, shooting back in wild, random shots at the doorway. Her throw is clumsy, the bomb knocking against the door and falling too far outside the bedroom, but there is enough smoke or maybe her panicked shooting causes her assassin to pause long enough that she is already half-way out of the window when the return fire starts. The window pane shatters above her. Nika forces the rest of herself through the narrow space between the ledge and the half-closed window, her nose and eyes stinging from the smoke.

She can't think, her mind a screaming white blank; and there is a rough rope in her hands and a thin old ledge under her feet between her and the traffic below, a million miles away, and fuck oh fuck, oh god fuck, she can't remember, what is she suppo—

Nika screams once, short and strained, as she falls. She falls because she is shaking so badly she loses her balance between the ledge and wind, and it saves her life. She slams against a window two floors below, and because she hadn't pushed herself off, the momentum is too weak to smash the glass. She would have fallen then if the window hadn't already been half-opened: her ankles scrap painfully against the bottom edge as half her body slides in. For a second, Nika hangs half-in, half-out, her eyes still staring up wide-eyed into the sky and white knuckles clutching her lifeline. It is a mix of adrenaline and instinct that makes her react in time – from the smoking window above, the dark figure leans out and shoots down in one smooth movement – Nika pulls herself in using the rope and collapses on the carpet just as he does. Distantly, she is aware of a woman screaming in the room around her, and a man shouting. She stumbles up, her eyes still blurred from tear-gas and terror. Her right shoulder throbs dully.

She moves.

In the corridor, there is sound of running and people shouting, but she can't see anyone, she's alone. 47 is nowhere in sight. Nika runs and tries to breathe past the sob in her throat. The corridor seems long and endless, all ordinary pastel-print wallpaper and soothing amber lights, as if a surreal nightmare turned inside out. If another assassin appears at the end of the corridor right now, she would have nowhere to hide. She runs, she limps, she struggles to breathe. The world comes in jolting, red-misted fragments: the end of a corridor; a turn; her hand splayed wide against the wall as she uses it to turn without stopping; a smear of bright red across the wallpaper.

47's tie flashes across her eyes, blood-red as well; and then, she is colliding into him, collapsing. He grabs her hard by the shoulder.

Except.

This –

Isn't –

47.

The man kicks her legs from under her, then spins her around so that she's pressed back against him and facing the end of another corridor. His arm is hooked under her throat and she is choking, her hands clawing at his arm weakly, struggling. Nika's eyes roll up. Through her blurred sight, she can see he is shaven-headed as well, and in a dark suit, and he is nothing like 47.

He shakes her once, brutally. "Look ahead," he orders her. Something cold presses against her temple: a gun muzzle. He loosens his grip a little, enough that he can force her head forward, then his arm tightens around her again. "He has to see this."

Nika has barely enough air to stay conscious, let alone fight anymore. The end of the corridor looks like a frame, glowing gently and waiting. All 47 has to do is step into it and she can go, she thinks dizzily. She can go.

There is the sound of muffled gunshots, from the connecting corridor further down. Her assassin behind her tenses up. It cuts off her air completely. And in Nika's fading consciousness, everything slows down, becomes thick and heavy-weighted. And she sees –

She hears –

A beat of ringing silence, like the heartbeat before a detonation.

A muzzle, pressed with slow insistence against her temple.

The frame of the corridor, golden and glowing and empty.

And now, turning from the corner in one fluid, time-rippling movement, a dark-eyed hitman with silver guns outstretched in both hands.

He should have hesitated when he saw her in the trapped by a fellow hitman. Should have paused, if only to re-adjust his aiming for a shot that wouldn't end up as a hole in her forehead. Nika knows she expected him to. She definitely knows that her assassin was counting on him to.

But even in the slow-motion of her mind, 47 doesn't hesitate.

He comes around the corner. Even as he does, he is already shooting once, twice. Clean and efficient. Precise and deliberate.

Nika's body reacts before her mind realizes.

She jerks back against the man behind her. Once, twice. The pain is surprisingly minimal. The shock is not.

47 has shot her.

As she sinks to the ground, her would-be assassin releasing her dead weight, she catches the man's eyes. They look amazed as well.

Then the black claims her, and Nika is gone.

* * *

She wakes up in hell. She must be in hell because one, she was a whore in her old life; and two –

Everything _hurts._

Nika opens her eyes and finds herself staring at the cloth-covered face of a medic. Behind him, the ceiling is swishing past at an alarming speed. She's on a gurney of some sort, and he's pushing her.

She raises her head slightly, and regrets it immediately.

"_Fuck!_"

"Oh," the medic says inanely. "You're awake."

Her shoulder fucking _hurts_. The pain steals her breath for a moment. She hisses.

"What the hell happened?"

Her bewilderment gets eaten by the noise of the corridor. There are policemen and people everywhere, and they all seem to be trying to shout over each other. The noise is incredible. They pass a room where a woman is sobbing hysterically inside, another medic trying to calm her down. Nika watches dazedly. She tries again, louder:

"He shot me." She can't tell if she's more stunned or hurt.

"Yes," the medic agrees. "I saw. Special blanks to get you out of the picture. Very cleverly done."

"You saw?" Then her confusion sharpens into urgency. "Did you see where he went? The man who shot me?"

"Er, yes. He just left actually."

"But he can't..."

She stops. The medic continues pushing her rapidly through the chaos of the corridor. He really is going fairly fast, considering the amount of people milling about. But Nika is blind to it all.

"He left me." It's funny how it still hurts no matter how many times she says it, like scratching an open wound. "Here. He left me here."

"He stayed with you till after midnight," the medic offers, as if that's supposed to comfort her. "And ah, bandaged your shoulder? See?"

Nika tilts her head, looks at her right shoulder dully. Her blood is already staining the makeshift bandages red, a parody of a blossoming flower. At least 47 had kept her from bleeding out before he abandoned her to strangers. At least.

"Some fucking blank."

The medic looks at her thoughtfully as he pushes her into the lift. "That wasn't him."

The lift doors shut, sealing them in their own space of silence. The man takes off his mask, sighs; then looks down at her interestedly. Aside from a pale scar marking the side of his face, he looks remarkably ordinary, his mess of light brown hair cut short and neat to his sides. So it takes a while before the intensity of his stare manages to pull Nika out of her growing despair.

"What?" she snaps.

"Oh, sorry." The man looks contrite. "It's just that... you look a little different from your pictures in your file, that's all. But in a good way."

He smiles down at her. It is such an open, friendly smile that for one disorientated beat, Nika doesn't understand.

Then she does.

"Who are you?"

Her accent always thickens when she's terrified. He ignores her.

"You know, you may be the hardest mark I've ever tried to track," he says confidingly. "I think I was getting close to finding your hideout too, but then he went and pulled you out."

"_Who are you?_"

The lift doors open. Outside, it is the car park basement, flickering with dim fluorescents and deathly quiet. She is trapped and alone. And 47 has left her in the hands of his enemies.

Her captor smiles. "Me?" He steers her out of the lift. There is no one else around.

"I'm the one no one ever sees coming."


End file.
